How Spotify’s Daniel Ek is Revolutionising Healthcare with Neko Health’s High-Tech Body Scans

Neko Health, a high-tech screening clinic co-founded by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, has launched in London, aiming to revolutionise healthcare by detecting disease long before symptoms emerge. Using high-resolution cameras, lasers, and radar, Neko Health’s cutting-edge technology captures millions of data points from the body to identify potential health issues that could become serious or life-threatening.

This preventative approach offers what some call “high-tech MOTs,” but it has sparked controversy. Some doctors warn that such screenings could exacerbate health inequities and increase NHS workloads by flagging potentially insignificant findings. Daniel Ek and his co-founder, Hjalmar Nilsonne, acknowledge the debate and are open to engaging in it.

Inside Neko Health’s futuristic scanning rooms, Hjalmar explains that traditional healthcare is largely reactive, focused on treating symptoms after they appear. “We need to become more proactive, more preventative, to help people stay healthy longer,” he says. “Instead of giving them medicine, give them long-term health.”

The London clinic, Neko’s first outside Stockholm, has an almost sci-fi feel. Hidden beneath a busy shopping street, patients enter a booth reminiscent of a Star Trek teleporter. Inside, nine cameras—HD, 3D, and thermal—take over 2,000 images to create a high-resolution map of every mole, freckle, and blemish on the skin. Returning clients can have annual scans to track changes in size, pigmentation, and other warning signs of skin cancer.

Advanced technology also screens for early cardiovascular disease. Lasers assess arterial stiffness, green light patterns monitor blood circulation, and blood pressure cuffs take simultaneous readings from all four limbs. Blood samples are collected to evaluate cholesterol, blood glucose, and biomarkers of inflammation, among other indicators.

In under an hour, millions of data points are gathered and analysed. A doctor reviews the findings immediately, providing patients with detailed insights into their health. Like 79% of those scanned in Neko Health’s first year in Stockholm, I received a clean bill of health. However, 14% of clients in Sweden required medical treatment based on the results, and 1% received potentially life-saving care for previously undiagnosed conditions.

Neko Health’s preventative health checks have gained traction, with more than three-quarters of customers rebooking for annual follow-ups, viewing the £300 cost as worthwhile. Celebrity endorsements, such as Kim Kardashian’s praise of Prenuvo’s similar scanner as a “life-saving machine” on Instagram, have also helped fuel the buzz around such services.

This shift toward disease prevention is gaining influential supporters. Professor Sir John Bell of the Ellison Institute of Technology in Oxford, a key figure in the creation of the UK Biobank and the Our Future Health study, believes preventative health checks will become the norm within the next decade. He envisions a future where advanced technology and AI routinely monitor our inner health, far beyond the basic lifestyle questionnaires currently offered by the NHS to mid-life patients.

However, it represents a significant change for the NHS. “People don’t want to talk about cardiac problems until they have chest pain,” says Professor Bell. “But by then, it’s too late because for 35 or 40 years, the issue has been building in your arteries. Catching diseases early will extend healthy life expectancy.”

Yet not all doctors are convinced. Dr. Saira Ghafur, a respiratory physician at Imperial College London, raises concerns about accessibility. She worries that the people most likely to benefit from these health checks may be the least able to afford them, potentially deepening existing health inequalities.